FOLA seated in a grey suit, looking down at his hands

FOLA’s Fifth No. 1 This Year Is the First One He Didn’t Share

Every No. 1 FOLA had this year came with company. Shoday was on the first one in January, Ayra Starr on the second, Davido and Mayorkun on “B4 B4,” which held the top for six weeks, and Bella Shmurda and Zlatan on “it’s over” in September.

The fifth one is his alone.

“miss u ii (nriri)” climbed from No. 48 to No. 1 on TurnTable’s Official Nigeria Top 100 for Oct. 9 to 15, its first full week out and the week 9 arrived. TurnTable says it is his first solo No. 1 on the chart. It got there without leading either count (2.71 million on-demand streams, No. 2 on streaming behind Seyi Vibez’s “Back 2 U,” and No. 3 on radio). Seven of that week’s top 15 songs carry his name, so the competition was partly himself, and the song he sings alone finished five places above “2am in toronto,” the new one with Davido. Three of his five No. 1s now come from 9.

That was the doubt around him. When The Native traced his rise in September 2025, just ahead of catharsis, it wrote, “If there have been any queries about FOLA’s inspiring run, it’s his standalone power.” The solo singles kept stopping short: “you,” from that album, was still on the chart in its 39th week this May and never got past No. 2.

The song that closed the gap is older than all of it. FOLA put out the first “Miss You” himself in October 2023, a year before Bella Shmurda signed him to Dangbana Republik, and the sequel keeps one line from it, “I miss you bad,” with sbthaproducer building the new beat around it.

America heard 9 in a different order. On Billboard’s US Afrobeats Songs chart for the same week, FOLA has ten songs, and there the Davido duet leads at No. 7 with “miss u ii” two places behind it. At home it went the other way.

9 also opened at No. 1 on TurnTable’s albums chart, ahead of Seyi Vibez’s SWAGUU. Going into the next Top 100, “Back 2 U” was still the most-streamed song in the country, by about 180,000 plays.

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Update (Oct 21)

The same chart week brought a pile of new FOLA songs with it. TurnTable’s list of the week’s debuts in the top 40 has eight songs, and FOLA is on six: “2am in toronto” with Davido at No. 7, “waf” at No. 14, “awade” at No. 26, “my type” with BNXN at No. 28, “how many?” at No. 31 and “crime” at No. 32. The other two are Young Jonn’s “Let It Go” at No. 25 and NO11 and Gabzy’s “Coachella” at No. 39.

Further down, TurnTable’s chart page shows three more 9 tracks entering: “in order” at No. 45, “stubborn” at No. 49 and “hold u down” with Darkoo at No. 60.